Crossfit Bellevue

Are You Getting Your Daily D?

It’s winter in Seattle. Sun exposure is limited and blood levels of vitamin D are dwindling. Supplementation is the only reasonable way to keep those levels propped up throughout the dark months. A capsule providing 5,000 IUs each day is sufficient to provide the immune support, mood elevating, bone health, and cancer preventing benefits received by keeping blood levels above 30 ng/ml, minimum (closer to 50 ng/ml is preferred).

But spring is around the corner, and here is a great tool to calculate the sun exposure needed to activate Vitamin D, depending on the time of year, city, and weather condition:

http://zardoz.nilu.no/~olaeng/fastrt/VitD-ez_quartMED.html

Input a few variables and the model will tell you how long you have to stay in the sun–without sunscreen–to synthesize 25 mcg (1000 IU) of vitamin D.

Seattle’s decimal coordinates are: 47.61 N and 122.33 W (but enter -122.33 because the model uses degrees East)

Further reading: Check out Mike Holick’s new website:http://www.vitamindhealth.org/
He is widely considered the world’s leading authority on all things D and has just written a great new book.

To Snack or not to Snack:

I am frequently asked whether snacking between meals is a good idea or not. Mainstream nutritional advice tells us in order to keep our metabolism revved up, 6 small meals spaced 2-3 hours apart is the optimum feeding schedule. Once again, the ancestral health community (and evolutionary history) will disagree with the mainstream and propose that eating bigger meals, less frequently is the pattern our bodies would prefer we follow. Large blocks of time without food is part of our evolutionary history and we can envision a scenario in which hunter-gatherer populations would engage in a long day of hunting without food and then feast when a kill was made. There were frequent, randomly occurring periods when food was scarce, hence we are well-equipped to handle fasting. 

After eating, insulin is elevated in response to glucose and amino acids in the blood. Cells can then pack glucose, fatty acids, and amino acids away for fuel. We know that insulin is the master storage hormone and that anytime insulin is elevated, we are in ‘storage’ mode and cannot be burning fat. Depending on the amount of carbohydrate in the meal, and each individual’s unique response to carbohydrate, the degree of insulin elevation varies. However in normal, healthy people, insulin usually returns to the pre-meal level within 3 hours of eating. 

This means that after you eat a meal, you will be digesting, absorbing, storing, and burning glucose from your meal (which accounts for the ‘elevated metabolism’ after eating) and will not return to using your own fat stores for about three hours. If you eat again within 2-3 hours, you’ve not allowed your body to ‘reset’, return to baseline, and resume running off of the preferred fuel source: our unlimited fat reserves. If you repeat this cycle throughout the day, you will be burning only energy from the meal you just ate and will not touch fat stores. This type of pattern causes one to be strongly dependent on those feedings every 2-3 hours (ie. those who are very irritable when they get hungry). Because their body is no longer adapted to running off stored fat, as soon as the fuel is gone from that meal, hunger signals immediately cause these folks to seek out food again. 

If someone is very active and on their feet all day, they will need to eat more frequently—they require more energy—however, for the majority of people who have fairly sedentary jobs while still exercising consistently, 3-4 meals each day will allow the body to reset after eating and tap into stored fat for fuel between meals. 

Sleeping is the longest fast we engage in each day. Oftentimes, we eat out of habit first thing in the morning because that’s what we’ve been conditioned to do. However, by eating larger meals less frequently, you might find you are not very hungry for breakfast—take advantage of this fasting period and put off eating until you are truly hungry. Or, a splash of heavy cream or coconut milk in the morning coffee will likely hold you over and keep you running off stored fat (carbs and protein cause insulin to rise, but fat only does so minimally).

For the Crossfit folks, if you exercise first thing in the morning or in the afternoon 4-5 hours after eating lunch, make sure you give yourself a small boost of energy just before intense exercise (ie. small banana 15 min before exercise) and then get a good meal after the workout. Include starchy carbohydrate for recovery. Otherwise, a ‘bigger, less frequent’ meal pattern will work well. Additionally, with a large portion of calories coming from fat at each meal, we feel satiated, hunger is abated for a longer period, and we avoid insulin spikes from higher carb meals that stimulate hunger. 

If fat loss is a goal, do not deprive yourself or fast when you are truly hungry, as this will trigger ‘starvation mode’ which is a stress: cortisol will rise, your body will hold onto all fat reserves, and metabolism will decrease to compensate for the lack of energy intake. We want to find the sweet spot where your body knows it is not starving, as there is plenty of energy coming in, but insulin is low and fatty acids are freely liberated from adipose tissue to fuel you between meals.

Jessica Kuzma MS, RD

Sugar, Juice, and Artificial Sweeteners

Many people know that eliminating sugar is healthy but are unsure whether artificial sweeteners are a harmless substitute.  While the only way to break a sweet-tooth or carb addiction is to remove the TASTE of sweet, you can make better choices when choosing to indulge in sweets.  Research is increasingly showing that all sugars are not created equal:  Fructose, rather than glucose, is the real concern for metabolic syndrome risk because it promotes fat accumulation in the liver.  Avoid concentrated fructose sources whenever possible and keep the following information in mind: 

Agave Nectar:  Composed of 90% fructose and 10% glucose, this sweetener has a deceptively low Glycemic Index (GI is measured by blood GLUCOSE concentration).  Agave is worse than High-Fructose Corn Syrup; always avoid this sweetener.

Sucrose (table sugar):  Composed of 50% fructose, 50% glucose.  Refined, raises blood sugar and insulin sharply. 

High-Fructose Corn Syrup:  Usually 55% fructose, 45% glucose.  The commercials are right; your body cannot distinguish between this sweetener and other refined sugars.  The problem lies in the quantity of HFCS used in processed foods and beverages.  Unlike glucose, fructose does not elicit satiety signals and following fructose consumption, the body does not recognize calories were taken in.  Therefore, calories consumed in later meals will remain the same.

Fruit Juice:  Gram for gram, fruit juice is more detrimental to your health than soda due to the fructose content.  Eat whole fruit rather than juice.

Honey:  Tastes just as sweet as sugar but contains only 82 g carbs/100 g sample (vs. 100 g carb/100 g for sucrose) and it is unrefined.  The composition varies based on where the honey comes from, but on average, honey is 17% water, 39% fructose, 31% glucose, 1 % sucrose, 9 % maltose and melicitose,  and 3 % ash/other.  Preliminary research suggests the fructose in honey is not as detrimental to the liver as fructose from HFCS or fruit juice.

Sugar substitutes:  Stevia, aspartame, sucralose (Splenda), saccharin, etc.  All these sweeteners are categorized by their sweetness factor, or how many times sweeter than sucrose they taste.  Stevia, for instance, has a sweetness factor of 250x, therefore it can be labeled as non-caloric because only a small amount is needed to achieve flavor.  Some people experience side-effects after consuming these sweeteners, such as headaches, nausea, etc.  Effects of long-term exposure have not been studied for any of these products therefore it is best to use occasionally in small quantities.

Sugar alcohols: Sorbitol, xylitol, malitol.  Similar taste and sweetness compared to sucrose with approximately half the calories.  Metabolized slowly, may cause bloating and diarrhea.

If you’re using small quantities as a sweetener, honey or a sugar substitute/alcohol are your best options.  If you occasionally cave to a soda craving, avoiding HFCS and going for the ‘diet’ variety is a better choice—as long as you drink it with something else that has calories.  Be aware that non-caloric sugar substitutes still elicit an insulin response.  The taste of sweetness is enough to trigger insulin release and, if you’re not consuming food along with it, hypoglycemia will occur followed by an increase in hunger.

Jessica Kuzma MS,RD

Question from E:

I heard that the Paleo diet is too low sugar to be sustainable over a long period of time. Especially in the case of attempting to uphold a sustained level of higher level cognition and learning in the brain. what is an ‘appropriate’ amount of sugar for humans to consume?

I was also told that HFCS is GOOD because it’s actually partially broken down and can save your body energy (not to say that I’m actually believing what my source told me)

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You are correct in that our brain does prefer to run on glucose; however the misconception lies in the assumption that because our brain needs glucose, then we must get it from our diet. This is false; we are perfectly capable of producing all the glucose our brain needs to ‘uphold a sustained level of higher level cognition and learning’ from amino acids and glycerol (and, our brain can use ketones when glucose becomes scarce) without eating any carbohydrate at all. 

Therefore, I disagree with the blanket statement that ‘the paleo diet is too low in sugar to be sustained over a long period of time’, however–and here’s the important distinction–our bodies are not capable of synthesizing enough glucose to support brain function AND that which is necessary to fuel intense, chronic, anaerobic exercise–the work demand of, say, crossfit. 

If you are sedentary, or only participate in low-intensity, aerobic exercise (i.e. walking), then you are capable of burning fat to fuel you during periods of low-intensity movement thereby sparing precious glucose that you’ve manufactured from protein to keep your brain functioning. If you participate in metcon workouts, sprints, any fast-twitch muscle movements, or endurance events that depend on muscle glycogen (cycling, marathon) then your demand for glucose will be higher and must be supplied by glucose from the diet. 

How much do you need? That depends on your sport and goals, but for the average 3x/wk crossfit athlete who would like to perform well and remain lean, somewhere around 80-100 grams/day of starchy carbs (with the majority consumed following exercise) is a good rule of thumb. Basically, eat as many carbs as you need to do the exercise you want to do. 

Now, the second part of the question: High-fructose corn syrup. In the previous paragraph, I was talking about glucose—an essential monosaccharide that is the primary sugar found in starchy carbohydrate. Fructose—also a monosaccharide—is a completely non essential sugar; there is not a single reaction or process in our bodies that requires fructose. HFCS is composed of glucose and fructose (just like sucrose, or table sugar) somewhere in the range of 55 to 90 % fructose. It is ‘partially broken down’ in that it occurs in a slurry form with weak, easily broken bonds which allows the fructose and glucose to enter the portal vein very rapidly. 

The sugars are carried immediately to the liver where 80 % of the fructose (and only 20% of the glucose) is extracted before the blood continues on to systemic circulation. This is our first clue that fructose is potentially a bad molecule: the liver extracts almost all of the fructose—just like it extracts almost all the ethanol when we drink alcohol. The liver is in charge of dealing with toxins before they can reach the rest of the body and the liver must deal with fructose just as it deals with ethanol.

We have a huge capacity to store glucose in the form of liver and muscle glycogen, however we have no way to store fructose, so we try to burn it off quickly yet 30 % of the fructose we ingest ends up as fat. This is because the fructose molecule enters glycolysis (energy-producing reaction) at a later point, following a key rate-limiting enzyme step. This means that there is no regulation as to how much energy is being produced because there is no enzyme keeping tabs on the fructose. It’s like a nozzle on a hose: With glucose, the stream is controlled by a dial on the hose matching the amount of glucose entering the energy-producing pathway to the amount of energy demand at the other end. With fructose, there is no dial on the hose; it is open full-bore all the time regardless of the body’s energy demand on the other end. 

What happens when you have excess energy constantly entering a system that is not utilizing said energy? The liver has to protect itself by exporting all the by-products in the form of fat and when the the liver cannot continue to match the rate of export with the generation of new fat, fat droplets begin to accumulate in the liver. This is exactly what happens in the liver of an alcoholic, but with fructose we call it Non-Alcoholic Fatty Liver Disease. 

So, E, your source stating that ‘HFCS is good because it saves your body energy’ is an understatement: HFCS is bad because it creates a huge energy surplus that, when consumed chronically, causes damage by overwhelming the liver’s capacity to deal with the fructose toxin. Now, if you are someone who can utilize the extra energy generated by fructose (by participating in regular exercise), consuming up to 25 grams of fructose/day is probably no problem for the normal, healthy person. Fructose can also be used to generate extra energy in the liver for a boost immediately before exercise (such as a small piece of fruit right before activity). But for the most part, fructose should be treated as alcohol; a toxin that is best minimized or consumed in small doses.

For an excellent video explaining this entire process, check out Dr. Robert Lustig: ‘Sugar, the Bitter Truth’ here.

Or an abridged version here.

Jessica Kuzma MS, RD

Wheat Breeding and the Rise in Celiac Disease

An interesting paper published last fall (abstract here) proposed that the rise in Celiac disease and gluten sensitivity over the past several decades is likely a result of not only heightened awareness of the disease and better diagnostic tools, but also due to selective breeding of our wheat crops to include a higher concentration of gluten proteins. In addition, our exposure has increased due to the food processing industry’s use of gluten as a filler in everything from soups, sauces, and meats to nutritional supplements.

There are two main protein-fragments that stimulate the immune system and cause symptoms in the majority of Celiac patients. Researchers compared the concentration of these fragments in the 30 or so modern wheat varieties currently eaten worldwide to those present in the 50 varieties that were most common a hundred years ago. Turns out, there is a lot more gluten in our food supply now thanks to selective breeding to increase crop yields, resistance to climate change and disease, and because a higher protein content leads to more favorable bread-making properties (dough elasticity).

Currently, wheat is the third most produced cereal crop in the world (after rice and corn) and consumption has fluctuated over the past decade or so (graph here). In response to emergence of the ‘low carb’ movement in the early 2000′s, wheat consumption decreased dramatically. However, the wheat industry responded by processing wheat products to include more fiber and protein—two things that are seemingly lacking in diets worldwide. And, ironically, the two portions of the wheat kernel that are the most problematic for the gut and immune system—more protein means more gluten and more fiber means more wheat germ.

Gluten proteins stimulate the immune system (in both symptomatic and asymptomatic individuals), and the germ is where the antinutrients (wheat germ agglutinin lectin) are concentrated. Lectins are chemical defenses the plant has evolved to protect its embryo (genetic material), located in the germ of the seed.Wheat producers are trying to entice us back to eating wheat by advertising products with increased protein and fiber. It certainly seems to be working—demand for wheat products has been on the rise since 2005.

During comparison analysis of the varieties of wheat most common a century ago, the researchers came across several strains that had a much lower concentration of the offending protein fragments, which offers potential for lower gluten-containing wheat crops to be selected and bred in the future.

This type of selective breeding is similar to what we have done to our fruit supply: sweeter, juicier, and bigger fruits are in demand by consumers and as a result, the concentration of fructose has increased dramatically.

Jessica Kuzma MS, RD

We’ll start posting nutrition information soon. Stay tuned!